* 
1 
4 
FOREST AND STREAM 
THE CECROPIA 
FOUND EVERYWHERE, AND THERE’S MANY A 
GOOD TROUT LEADER CONCEALED WITHIN HIM 
» 
By Edwin T. Whiffen. 
T HE best of our American caterpillars 
from which to draw leaders is the 
Cecropia, because it is the largest, and 
consequently furnishes the longest and 
largest gut. It is very commonly found 
in and around New York City, spinning its 
cocoon on almost any kind of twig, where 
chance may find it at the stunning season. 
I have sometimes found the cocoon at¬ 
tached to a grass-stalk, or a nettle-stalk. 
The cocoons are found at almost any height 
from the ground, from a few inches to 
fifty feet. The manner of attachment and 
shape readily distinguish it from all other 
cocoons. However, a drawing is the best 
means of identification, and one is sub¬ 
joined. 
Any time is suitable for collecting the 
cocoons, from fall till spring, though natur¬ 
ally such objects are more distinguishable 
after the leaves have fallen. As the rear¬ 
ing of the caterpillar from the egg is the 
only reliable method of obtaining them, it 
is advisable to secure a sufficient supply 
before warm weather comes in the spring. 
Twenty or thirty ought to be enough to 
insure obtaining a fertile female, which will 
lay several hundred eggs, resulting in as 
many caterpillars, all that an ordinary per¬ 
son will care to look after. 
After collecting as many cocoons as you 
may require, put them away in a cool place; 
otherwise your moths will emerge and cat¬ 
erpillars will appear before the leaves come 
out in the spring for their food. 
When the leaf buds begin to burst in 
the spring, put the cocoons in a warm room. 
The moths will emerge in a few days and 
mate. The female begins at once to lay 
her eggs, and finishes in a few days, dying 
shortly after. Her mate is probably also 
dead by this time. The moths eat nothing, 
since they do not have the necessary ap¬ 
paratus. 
In ten days or two weeks, depending 
upon the temperature, the little, black, 
hairy caterpillars hatch, and at once feed 
voraciously. They will eat the leaf of al¬ 
most any kind of shrub or tree, though 
they are sometimes notional, and must be 
watched carefully to see if they are feed¬ 
ing properly. A good plan is to put sev¬ 
eral kinds of leaves in at first, and then 
see which they prefer. 
Any very tight receptacle will do for 
rearing them in. But they are wanderers 
by instinct, and have a disconcerting habit 
•of “making the most of any opening.” I 
have found Mason jars, with the tight- 
fitting cover, very suitable. There is no 
■fear of their smothering, ordinarily. 
They moult several times during their 
life, with a resulting change of color. At 
such times, they remain motionless and do 
not feed till after they have cast their 
skin. They should not be disturbed. It is 
a good plan to give them fresh leaves 
every morning, with the dew still on them; 
or, if the leaves are dry, sprinkle a few 
drops of water on them. 
Care must be taken to clean out the old 
leaves and excrement frequently, otherwise 
a peculiar fungoid disease makes short 
work of the worms. Any dead caterpil¬ 
lars should be removed whenever observed. 
For the above reasons, it is better to raise 
a comparatively small number, to which 
you can give the best of care, than to try 
to raise a great many, and get only a small 
part of them big enough for gut, which 
from a poorly developed specimen will 
likely be weak. 
I N seven or eight weeks, the caterpillar 
is mature, and is ready to spin. After 
the fifth or sixth week you should begin 
to feed the kind of leaf which produces the 
best results. I have found a thick, fleshy 
plum-leaf to be the best, with leaf of the 
long blackberry a close second. Many of 
the leaves which they eat when wild have 
little value for gut-producing purposes. I 
have tried apple, peach, pear, maple, wild 
cherry, sumach, poplar, magnolia, etc., 
with poor results. Plum and long black¬ 
berry have stood the test. It is hardly 
worth your while to care for the caterpil¬ 
lars several weeks, and then, through lack 
of proper food, get only disappointing re¬ 
sults. 
If you happen to have plum trees or long 
blackberry bushes available, it will save 
you some labor to put the worms on them 
until they are ready to spin. If you do 
this, however, you are quite likely to have 
fewer, but healthier, specimens, than if 
they were reared entirely within doors. 
Do not be in a hurry about drawing the 
gut. Make sure that the worm is actually 
ready to spin, best told by waiting till the 
cocoon is actually begun. You will not 
lose six inches’ length of your leader, and 
will not, through prematurity, throw away 
your chances of success. 
A large, full-grown Cecropia caterpillar 
is sometimes over five inches long, rather 
slender in proportion. It is apple-green in 
color, with several large, red tubercles ar¬ 
ranged in pairs on the back, on the seg¬ 
ments near the head. They help to give 
the worm a somewhat terrifying aspect to 
any bird which might think of eating it. 
I have given directions for drawing the 
gut in the January Forest and Stream, and 
need not repeat them here. 
A word more about collecting may be 
advisable. I have found them quite abun¬ 
dant in upper Manhattan, on maple, willow, 
elm, alder, sumach, etc. They are, or were, 
very common in Brooklyn, on the soft 
maple. Several years ago, a friend and 
myself secured, in a short time, a peck of 
cocoons from the maple trees in one block 
of Sixteenth Street in that borough. 
It is occasionally possible to get a few 
of these worms late in August, or early 
September. My attention has been called 
to their presence by the appearance of a 
twig with the leaves eaten away and the 
excrement on the ground beneath. When 
the worms are ready to spin they become 
restless and may be found crawling rapidly 
up or down trees, or across the walk or 
road, as though their lives depended upon 
their keeping an appointment. But this 
method of securing them is not nearly as 
reliable as that of securing the cocoons 
and rearing the caterpillars from the egg. 
ABOUT THAT 215-POUND TARPON. 
Editor Forest and Stream :—In your De¬ 
cember issue I see an account of a tarpon 
caught at Cobden, Ala., weighing 215 
pounds. * 
With the greatest deference to the scales 
and persons vouching for their accuracy, 
I cannot help thinking there is some mis¬ 
take, as according to the formula for the 
measurements given, the weight should be 
192 pounds only. 
My reason for querying the figure is 
that (1) I have fished for and caught 
many a tarpon and always found the for¬ 
mula accurate to within a few pounds 
either way, and (2) that at Tampico, Mexi¬ 
co, where I had my sport, I found on my 
arrival that the scales, though quite “of¬ 
ficially” correct, were 15 pounds in favor 
of each fish. Needless to say we soon had 
the error corrected. 
I cannot help thinking there is a great 
deal too much laxity in taking records, and 
in the case of salmon and tarpon at all 
events, if measurements are carefully taken, 
scales can be almost dispensed with, as the 
formulae for both fish give astonishing re¬ 
sults. A. L. Allen. 
Carlton Club, Pall Mall, London, S. W. 
